


Sickness, Nightmares, Crushes

by taylor_tut



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crushes, Fever, M/M, Minor Lance/Shiro (Voltron), Nightmares, Sad Shiro (Voltron), Sick Character, Sick Fic, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 17:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: For one of my favorite tumblr users and the best tag-writer on the face of this planet, @bluepaladin-bestpaladin! I love ya my dude, and I hope this fic makes your belated birthday happy! (Side note: I even went on my “reblog with your fav sickfic symptom” post you reblogged to see what you might want to read lmao.)





	Sickness, Nightmares, Crushes

“Hey,” Keith barked, kicking Lance’s foot that dangled off the couch he was sleeping on, “Lance, I need a favor.”

Lance stirred slightly, opening his eyes a crack before jamming his palms into them. “What time is it?”

He’d fallen asleep right after morning Lion training and couldn’t tell how long he’d been out. It didn’t feel like more than 20 minutes.

“Almost dinner,” Keith replied. “You look rough.”

Lance coughed a few times harshly into his elbow, then shrugged.

“You needed something?”

“I was going to ask you to spar with me, but you don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, I feel pretty lousy,” Lance admitted. “I think I’m just gonna go to bed.”

“You should probably go see Allura and Coran.”

“Nah, I’m just tired,” Lance brushed him off. “Goodnight, Keith.”

Keith hesitated, not really believing him, but finally caved. “Night, Lance.”

-  
-

Lance woke up in the middle of the night and the first thing he realized was that he was more than just tired. His head was pounding, and everything was spinning so fast he could barely see straight. Swaying as he stood, he gave in and admitted to himself that Keith had been right: he needed to see Allura and Coran.

Lance staggered down the castle hallway drunkenly toward Coran’s room, but along the way, a noise coming from behind Shiro’s door stopped him. He paused in the hallway, pressing his ear to the door so that he could make out the faint mutterings.

“Just a dream,” Shiro’s shaky voice whispered to himself, “come on, toughen up. It was only a dream.”

Lance’s heart broke. Shiro tried so hard to look strong for the rest of them, but honestly, it was moments like these, the ones were he was unguarded and human, that had made Lance fall in love with him.

And whether Shiro returned his feelings or not, and Lance knew that he did not, he wasn’t going to let someone as kind and wonderful as Shiro fight through a nightmare alone, fever be damned.

Two quick knocks on Shiro’s door went unanswered, but Shiro’s mumbling went silent.

“Shiro?” he called, “it’s me, Lance. Can I come in?”

There was a long hesitation, but then Lance heard rustling from inside the room, and finally the door opened to reveal Shiro standing in the doorway, looking disheveled. His hair was poofy from where he’d ran his hands through it, and one of his fingers was bleeding from where he’d bitten his nail.

“What are you doing up?” Shiro asked. Lance swayed forward a little and caught himself on the doorway, his hot hand resting nearly on top of Shiro’s metal one.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, deciding to omit his illness until he found out what had Shiro so upset. “Got up for water, and I heard you up. Everything okay?”

Shiro smiled almost convincingly. “I’m fine; go back to sleep.”

“You sure? Because it sounded like you were having a nightmare.” Shiro flushed bright red and cast his gaze to the floor. “Oh. You heard that.”

“Bits and pieces,” Lance admitted. “Wanna talk about it? I can’t sleep, so you won’t be keeping me up.” Shiro took a moment to think about that before opening his door so that Lance could come inside.

Immediately, Lance made himself comfortable in Shiro’s room. If he didn’t sit down soon, he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to stay on his feet, anyway, so he sat on Shiro’s bed and propped himself up against the wall of pillows. Shiro joined him on the bed.

“You don’t have to talk about the nightmare if you don’t want to,” Lance reassured him. “We can talk about whatever you want if you need a distraction.”

Shiro considered this and nodded. “Thanks,” he said, not knowing where to go from here.

“Do you have nightmares a lot?” Lance asked.

“Sometimes,” he shrugged, “when I’m really stressed out.”

“What’s got you so stressed out now?” Lance was shivering, so Shiro took the extra blanket from his bed and situated it on top of the blue paladin.

“Lots of things, I guess,” Shiro admitted, “but tonight, mostly,–there’s this person I like.”

“Oh? Have you told them?”

“No,” Shiro said. “It’s someone in the castle. I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”

Lance felt his heart rate increase.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Shiro blushed pink. “I’m not going to tell you that.”

“Come on, give me a hint.” Shiro rolled his eyes.

“Fine. They’re tall and beautiful, and really kind, and caring, even if they don’t always show it in an obvious way.”

Lance’s heart sunk. So Shiro DID have a thing for Allura. That sucked.

“Hmm,” Lance hummed. The heat from his fever was vortexing under the blanket and making him sweat a bit, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it off–it was still too cold. His vision jumped with every heartbeat, and the pounding in his head synchronized with that too-fast tempo. He was content that Shiro had finally opened up enough that he didn’t need much more prodding from Lance to keep talking, and as long as Lance nodded and hummed every so often, he could pretty much just drift off to the sound of the black paladin’s voice… He came back to reality when Shiro let out a long sigh.

“Have you ever been in love before?”

Lance couldn’t quite latch onto any of the words enough to figure out what Shiro was talking about.

“What was the question?” Lance asked.

Shiro chuckled lowly. The sound was warm and the only thing that really made sense to Lance right now. “Yeah, I get it; you’re a flirt, not to be tied down. But haven’t you ever had really strong feelings for just one person?”

Lance’s head was spinning and pounding. Shiro was asking him to reveal his crush even though he’d JUST admitted that he couldn’t return it?

“Yeah,” Lance admitted in a small, shaking voice, trying to hold back hot, fever-driven tears of bitter disappointment. He sniffled wetly.

“Lance?” Shiro called softly, “are you okay? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Lance refused to look up at Shiro. “S'fine,” he lied.

“Hey,” Shiro soothed, “look at me. What’s got you so upset?”

“It’s you,” Lance admitted.

“I don’t… understand what you mean.” Lance still refused to look Shiro in the eyes.

“Feelings. You.” The inarticulate ramblings were enough, it seemed, for Shiro to understand what he meant.

“Really?” Shiro verified disbelievingly. Lance nodded, and Shiro took his jaw lightly in his flesh hand. “Hey, look at me.”

Lance finally met Shiro’s eyes, and that vision made him realize exactly what he’d just done–confessed his feelings to his dear friend and the leader of the paladins. He’d never return them. Their friendship would never recover. Lance’s tears finally started to spill over onto his cheeks, which heated up even further with embarrassment.

“Lance, why are you crying?” Shiro worried, but the realization hit him when he noticed just how warm Lance’s face was in his hand. Shiro moved his hand from Lance’s chin to his forehead, pushing his hair out of the way. “Ah, jeez,” Shiro muttered, “No wonder you couldn’t sleep. You’ve got a fever. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was going to get Coran,” Lance admitted, “but I heard you and–more important.”

Shiro’s lips curled upward into a tender smile as he leaned forward to kiss Lance on the forehead.

“We’ve got to work on your priorities,” he informed. “Maybe over dinner sometime. I’ll take you out.”

“What?” Lance asked, shaking his head to clear it. He couldn’t have heard that properly.

“It’s you,” Shiro smiled. “I was talking about you. I love you.” Lance blinked owlishly for a moment. “Can you… tell me that again when my temperature goes down? I think I might be delirious.”

Shiro squeezed his hand and pressed another kiss to the top of his head before he got up to find Coran and get Lance checked over.

“Sure thing.”


End file.
